Community Language Contexts and Multilingual Education Practices

Myanmar Education Consortium (MEC) has embarked on a new research initiative ‘Case Studies of Community Language Contexts and Multilingual Education (MLE) Practices in Myanmar.

The study will support policy-making for language-in-education, by providing and an illustration of the range and diversity of community language contexts and practices in schools in ethnic areas across Myanmar. Over the next six weeks, researchers from (15) organisations; Shalom Foundation, Metta, Kaw Loh Foundation, Save the Children Myanmar, Dai Literature and Culture Group, Makury Naga Youth Federation-Chin, Eastern Naga Development, Mon National Education Committee (MNEC), Language and Social Development Organisation (LSDO), Rakhine Literature and Culture Group, Meikswe Myanmar, Karen Teacher Working Group-Eastern Burma Community Schooling (KTWG-EBCS), Kayan New Generation Youth (KNGY), Shan State Kachin Baptist Union Church-based education programme, Karen Baptist Church (KBC) will undertake a total of (15) case studies. It will take place in the various learning settings of Primary Education, Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) centres and literature and culture groups in (9) locations across Kachin, Shan, Kayin, Kayah, Mon and Chin States and in Rakhine, Ayeyarwaddy and Sagaing (Naga) regions.

At the study inception workshop on 24th-25th August 2016 in Yangon, the researchers participated in training and peer learning in a set of research tools for exploring community ethnolinguistic characteristics, MLE practices in schools and classrooms and stakeholders’ attitudes to the roles of different languages in education.